Wednesday 16 March 2011

Sunday scribblings "Big"

G'Day,
Sunday scribblings asks us to respond to the prompt word "Big".
Here is what came to my mind.

Lou Lou was tiny, everyone said how she was tiny. She hated that, she wanted to be big like her sister Krissy. Everyone noticed her sister but not Lou Lou.
Lou Lou in her 4 years experience had come to believe that she was tiny and insignificant, nobody noticed her because she wasn't big. Size had proven her sister the top dog. Lou Lou wanted to be a big girl too.
She was sick a lot when she was little, they called her poor little Lou Lou. Mummy would try to make her eat but she couldn't fit any more in, so she sat at the table and wasn't allowed to leave until she ate some more. The fat around the cut up sausage congealed and set hard on the plate before her and she started to cry. She couldn't tell them, didn't know the words to describe how the metal spoon they gave her to eat off would bite her on the tongue and make her food taste bad, she liked the plastic spoon, but they said the table must be set with the metal one's so she couldn't eat. Mummy got mad and grabbed her by the arm pulling her off her chair and took her to the bathroom where her face was scrubbed and teeth cleaned then she had to go to bed early.
When she got a bit older Lou Lou started to eat and each time she did, Mummy would say "Oh look Lou Lou is eating, Quick! shove something else in her mouth". So they did. Still nobody noticed her.
She stayed quietly in the back ground. Everybody said how lovely her sister was. She waited for somebody to think she was good, and big , and clever, and pretty like Krissy, but nobody ever did. If they did say something nice she didn't believe them because she thought they were just being kind, not real to her.
And nobody noticed. So she learned to smile and stay quiet. She learned to pretend that everything they said was right because it was easier that way, and she could hide behind her smile, so no one knew how it hurt.
Nobody could see her on the inside.
Lou Lou did get big. Too big later. She wasn't happy with how that looked either, she still wasn't right.
When she gave her smile, her empty smile they called her names and laughed about it.
She stayed hidden from them. Much easier to have no personality than show them what was inside her. Bland from inside and out. The hurt and disappointment in herself.
She learned other things though. She learned to look around her and watch faces for every nuance of approval...or disapproval. She watched the bugs and insects and the way they behaved and walked and sounded and grouped together. She watched the plants and flowers and their progression to fruit and seed to renewal. She gave all her love to pets and toys instead of people whom she could not trust to be true. She watched the seasons and knew from the plants and animals what would come next. She watched the world go by.

Bye
Love Linda.

4 comments:

Everydaythings said...

love that new header Linda!

Jae Rose said...

Never bland ;) always magical looking at bugs and trusting teddy bears..love the new site and the new direction of this piece..flowed beautifully..and those congealed sausages..they stuck in the throat..Jae

Meryl Jaffe said...

Oh how sad...

What a wonderfully captivating post. Thank you!

Meryl
http://departingthetext.blogspot.com

Lilibeth said...

A tragic story that I'm afraid has actually happened more times than we know. What an opener for a story!